


the weight of a smile, a name, a drop to the floor

by Blackcat413



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A little, Angst, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mentioned Edelgard von Hresvelg, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Soft Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Sort Of, Teacher-Student Relationship, betcha didn't think pre-timeskip could have this much angst, dimileth, dimitri finally opens up liKE HE SHOULD HAVE, i am straying so far from canon rn, no beta we die like Glenn, slight spoilers for ch9 (the ball), there's barely any spoilers guys i literally wrote this right after playing ch9, well IT DOES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 00:02:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20162338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackcat413/pseuds/Blackcat413
Summary: His eyes slide past her while she’s trying to unscramble her thoughts. She turns around and looks at the ballroom, awash with golden light, and then back to him. Slowly, she speaks, and hopes she has the answers this time. “Shall we get out of here? I’m sick of this ball.”Her heart has no beat, but still, she feels as if it thumps, and the self-satisfied smile that curls on his lips when he hears her words tells her that she made the right decision. She scarcely believes it. Without another word, he waves for her to follow him, which she does, blindly.





	the weight of a smile, a name, a drop to the floor

**Author's Note:**

> i turned this in for a creative writing assignment pray for my soul / leave it to ao3 desktop version to make 10 pages look like nothing lmao. I'm used to ao3 on my phone

When Byleth steps out, the night is clear, her head doesn’t hurt for once, and Dimitri is standing in the courtyard. She’s grateful for the merciful change of temperature in the air, even if she feels the persistent chill on her arms that makes her skin erupt into goosebumps. She wraps herself in the shawl she brought for tonight, glad she chose to dress a little more formally than usual for the ball, and walks out to meet him.

He has his back to her at first, but at the sound of her footsteps, he turns around. “Professor? What are you doing out here?” She can hear his surprise; he hadn’t expected to be out here with her. She doesn’t know if he is sad or happy, or merely indifferent. 

“What, can a woman not escape her constant attentions?” And then, sensing his distress, she drops her teasing tone. “I only jest, Dimitri. How are you doing?”

“I am well enough now, Professor, although the stuffy ballroom air wasn’t helping me at all.” His face looks troubled and uneasy. He tucks a lock of blond hair behind his ear without looking like he was putting much thought into the action. “You said you weren’t being serious, but I know how it feels to have all eyes on you. It can’t be easy being the favorite professor.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” she says, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Being a prince must be worse.” 

She doesn’t try to deny being the favorite. She knows it’s true, after all, and it makes her happy most of the time. The majority of her life before working here had been spent in solitude, so she’s happy for the change. Being such an unusually young professor- the same age as her students, more or less- made them take to her naturally, and she to them. Maybe she’ll get bored of it eventually, but she’s really come to care for them. One, in particular, more than the rest.

“I don’t know. Edelgard and Claude are here too, sharing the attention. They take some of the weight off my back, even if they don’t intend to. There’s only one of you, Professor,” he says.

“There’s only one of you, too,” she counters. She hesitates before continuing, knowing that the lightness in their voices up until now conveyed banter, but to ask this next question was to risk their casual conversation. “You don’t want to dance with Edelgard?” She frames the inquiry lightly, knowing that this can be a sore subject for him. If need be, she’ll adopt the concerned teacher act for him, but right now the woman in her is talking, not the professor.

She somewhat expects it, but he smiles sadly and shakes his head, and Byleth wishes she hadn’t said anything. She doesn’t like to see him sad.

“No, I don’t think I will do that,” he says. “It has been a very long time since we last danced.”

“But still, if it would make you happy to dance with her…”

“My step-sister was only allowed to be close to me for a year before she had to return to her own country. I fear that the distance is more than physical, nowadays. It was nice while it lasted, but we were very young; this was a decade ago, I think, or something close to that. We must’ve been only eight or ten when it happened, and we never spoke again after she left. At least, until we both came to study here.” He laughed, a little bit airy. “Although, we don’t really seem to speak  _ now,  _ either.”

“This could be your chance to reconnect, then, if you so desire it. Besides, it’s only a dance. Surely it would be fine…?” She doesn’t know why she can’t just leave the subject alone. She feels a twinge of irritation at herself for pushing it so much.

He looks blankly into the distance. “I don’t think so.” His voice is forlorn and faraway. Byleth feels a tug in her heart, like she wants to bring him back to her.

It isn’t the first time she’s thought such things, and- selfish and dangerous though it may be- she can’t deny herself the pleasure of speaking freely. “Dimitri, won’t you talk to me?”

At that, his head whips around, startled. She feels alarmed and guilty, as if she had just thoughtlessly dumped a bucket of cold water on his head. Before she can apologize, turn around, and step back into the ballroom like this whole exchange had never happened, his usual earnest tone snaps back into his voice as he says, “Talk to you? Professor, I will  _ always  _ talk to you. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Just like that, she feels less like an idiot than she has all night. He had sounded so much like himself there. She should’ve known that he would respond like that, with something sweet, instead of reproaching her. He  _ does  _ mean it, too, or he thinks he does; the sincerity in his voice is enough to make her want to drop to her knees and cry. 

She is Byleth Eisner, the Ashen Demon, the ghost without a heartbeat. She thinks back, tries to remember a time she had ever cried. She can’t. Just out of her teen years, and she can’t even remember what it was like to cry, or if she ever had in the first place. She just knows she longs for it, some unintelligible desire for tears that she’s never felt before. 

Logic and morality dictate that she should stop talking to him like this, so because she doesn’t know what to say, she abides by those rules for the time being. 

In the wake of her silence, he rubs his hand on the back of his neck and says, sheepishly, “I didn’t know you cared, though. I’m sorry for worrying you, if I did.”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” she says, feeling a little too soft for her own liking. “I don’t let it on too often. I just don’t want... my students,”  _ you,  _ she thinks, “getting too attached, since they won’t be my students forever. I do care a lot, though, and I hate to see you upset.”

She knows she should say something else, supply some acceptable excuse- " _ I always want my students to confide in me if they're having trouble, _ " or perhaps " _ The well-being of the future king of Faergus is important to me, _ " but any of the excuses she could’ve given were half-baked truths at best. She does not want to lie to him anymore tonight. Tomorrow, she would wake up and have to lie to him all over again, and she doesn’t want to fight that battle any more than she has to.

He pivots on the subject abruptly. “Have you heard the legend around here, Professor? They say that if a man and a woman go up to the clock tower on the night of the annual ball and make a wish, the goddess will grant their wishes.”

She thinks back to her bi-monthly excursions into town for supplies. The gatekeeper she had become fast friends with was the one who had told her of this particular legend, and at the time, she could think of only Dimitri. She didn’t intend to mention it to him at all, but she also didn’t count on him bringing it up to her first. It had seemed like an impossibility at the time.

“I’ve heard of it, although I don’t put much stock into legends,” is her diplomatic reply. Her neutrality is a front, although he can’t see that. He doesn’t know that he had been the first in her thoughts when she heard it, and that has potentially irreversible consequences all on its own.

“I thought you might say that, and I somewhat agree. I know the story is silly, but…” he trails off and doesn’t finish the sentence. Then he meets her eyes.  _ Expectantly. _

That… almost sounds like an invitation.

His eyes slide past her while she’s trying to unscramble her thoughts. She turns around and looks at the ballroom, awash with golden light, and then back to him. Slowly, she speaks, and hopes she has the answers this time. “Shall we get out of here? I’m sick of this ball.”

Her heart has no beat, but still, she feels as if it thumps, and the self-satisfied smile that curls on his lips when he hears her words tells her that she made the right decision. She scarcely believes it. Without another word, he waves for her to follow him, which she does, blindly.

~

As she expected, Dimitri leads her to the clock tower.

At first, they don’t speak at all, just watching the light flooding through the windows of the ballroom and into the courtyard from their isolated vantage point. They had been illuminated by that light mere minutes before, but now they’re cloaked in darkness. Byleth finds it comforting rather than unnerving, and she hopes her companion feels the same.

She wants to sit down, but she also wants to pay tribute to the gravity of what they’re doing, so she chooses to stand. On the surface, it is an inconsequential meeting and nothing more, but Byleth knows, and Dimitri knows, and neither of them want to say anything about it, so here they are. She wipes her sweaty palms on the fringe of her low-hanging shawl.

“Professor, what are you going to wish for? It only comes once a year, after all. We might not get another chance.”  _ Probably  _ won’t get another chance, even. The fact that they’re even up here to begin with is probably against the rules, but since she can think of no rules in particular that they’re breaking, she decides that they’re merely being improper. Then again, that isn’t much better. 

She shakes her head. “I can think of nothing, save for things that are useless, and will only become redundant with time.” 

He waits a beat. “I wanted… to wish for the safety of our friends. So that no one we love,”  _ we,  _ she thinks, and then,  _ we love _ , “would ever come to harm again. But I suppose that is an impossible wish.” 

“It is a beautiful wish.” She nearly chokes on the words, but they come out smooth. She almost wishes she  _ had _ choked. It is no less than she deserves.

“Professor…”

“Won’t you call me by my given name?” She implores him now because she’s already fallen far enough, she supposes, and she would like for him to say her name once. Just once. Before she loses her chance.

He doesn’t frown, although his eyebrows do shoot up and his lips part in surprise. “But what about the others?” 

“So? Dorothea calls-” and she almost says  _ Professor,  _ but that wouldn’t help her case at all, “-calls Manuela by her name, even in public. It will be fine.” Some nervous thing in her stomach turns when she considers that where she and Dimitri were right now couldn’t really be called  _ in public,  _ and then turns even more when she seriously thinks about those implications. Fortunately for her, he doesn’t seem to be thinking about it as hard as she is.

“But that’s different. They knew each other before. Professor Manuela is the one that taught Dorothea how to sing, isn’t she? Besides, it would be improper to presume-” 

Byleths wishes she cared more about propriety; if she did, she probably wouldn’t be in this mess. She humors him, though, because he’s right. As usual. She cuts him off before he can finish. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

At seeing her give up her argument, he starts, like he didn’t really mean to put up a fight like that. He doesn’t speak again right away, sparing a glance down at the courtyard- the only neutral place to look- as if he’s assessing himself. She can almost see the wheels turning in his head.

“Ah.” He says at last. Byleth has never before been so aware of the singularity of a syllable. “I want to. Byleth.” And then, after saying it, he suddenly looks more sure of himself. There is an unplaceable glint in his eyes.

At the sound of her own name, the lightning of surprise rockets through her. He keeps talking. “Perhaps it would make more sense for me to wish that we will be together forever. What do you think?”

He looks so serious, his jaw set in a hard line. A second of stunned silence passes before he chases his own words, his tone suddenly lightening. “I’m joking, of course. I’ve been trying to do that more often.”

She pauses, watches the minute flashes of insecurity in his expression. She doesn’t want to read him too closely out of respect for his feelings. It’s clear, without going too deep into it, that he feels conflicted. She knows enough. “ _ You have an impressive poker face, _ ” is her instinctual answer. She almost says that, but then as if reading her mind, all traces of seriousness vanish from his face and he gives her a beaming smile. Perhaps this is payback for asking him to say her name earlier, but her heart constricts all the same.

“That’s cruel,” is the reply she gives instead. Not just for her, but him as well. She almost feels guilty for being that risky with him, but she vowed earlier that she would not lie again tonight.

His smile fades and his sad expression returns, and Byleth knows that’s the tell right there. If he truly had been joking, as he claimed, he wouldn’t be so nebulous. She’s won their little game, but any triumph she feels is snuffed out immediately.

“You’re right to admonish me, I suppose. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” 

At first a worm of disappointment wriggles through her chest, because she thinks he’s only saying that because she is the professor, and he the student, but then he continues, a cloud forming over his brow: “My life is not mine to pledge; I don’t have a future to promise someone.”

It became clear, then, that he was no longer playing silly games with her. 

He hangs his head, looking utterly resigned, and Byleth almost steps forward to hug him. She catches herself before her feet can move, but the urge won’t go away. She lets herself slump against the cold stone wall as a reminder not to be so careless. It doesn’t drain the tension in her shoulders, though. 

“Why do you punish yourself like this? Don’t you want to be happy?” She tried to make it sound like a chide, just to tell him that he shouldn’t talk about himself that way, but she fears that it came across far differently, the way that she really meant it. She hears the anguish in her tone and doesn’t know if she wants him to hear it too.

“I am happy...” His tone is too soft for his words; nobody ever talks about happiness sounding so gentle. Happiness is a loud emotion: it is raucous, intrusive, overbearing. She wishes he would say it more firmly, so she could believe it. Instead, it had come out empty and hollow. “...Byleth.” Her name again, but she can’t savor it. Again, that urge to cry from earlier. Again, that intangible thumping, too powerful for her to handle. She feels not so much the heartbeat itself, but the anxiety of it. She wonders if he could feel his all the time, if his was beating as hard as hers would be right now. 

“Tell me the truth, Dimitri. Do you  _ want  _ to be king?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, looking a little more back to normal. She tries to compose herself as well. “That is… a complicated question, Profe- Byleth.” 

“I know. You don’t have to answer it. But at least tell me this: do you enjoy your time here?” This, she has to know. She has to know if all she’s doing is hurting him, or if he truly does appreciate her presence in his life. Somehow, she knows he’ll tell the truth tonight.

“Do I enjoy…? Is that truly even a question? I wish I never had to leave.” He sighs again. “There you have it. I suppose that is the answer to  _ both _ of your questions.” 

Now it was his turn to slump against the wall. They both slide to the floor together, hitting the cold stone at the same time with a  _ thump.  _ It feels different to hold a conversation on the floor. She likes this better. Wordlessly, Byleth scoots across the expanse between them to sit next to him on his side of the wall. He lets her, and she dares not do anything else.

She lets the silence rule for a moment more before speaking. “Dimitri. I will not act out of turn.” She knows that this will be the last question she asks tonight. “But you know, don’t you? I…” She starts a sentence but thinks better of it. “I want to be there for you,” she corrects. 

She knows he must not have missed her original meaning, by the look in his eye that he gives her after she’s done talking. He’s sharper than that, after all, but he doesn’t comment on it, and she doesn’t expect him to. “Aren’t you afraid of what will happen? When all this is over, and I have to do my duty? I’m going to be a  _ king _ , Byleth. I can’t just… do what I want.”

“I know you have duty,” she concedes, but she never said that he didn’t. She wants to clarify, anyway. “But I also know that I wish that you would- that you  _ could  _ tell me things. I wish that I could stay by your side, king or no king, everything else be damned. That’s the wish I really want to make tonight. It is my own, and it is selfish, but I feel it with my whole heart.”

She has never cried, she has never been in love before.

_ Love,  _ the word burns in her brain. She rolls it around in her head for a while, tasting the way it feels. She looks at Dimitri and decides it fits. 

He allows her words to digest for a little while. Byleth lets him, having her own revelations to sit with. The knot in her stomach is gone, and she’s glad she decided to sit with him on the floor. She wants to be close to him, now. They both stare down to where the ball is, each wondering to themselves if they should go down there together and dance with each other publicly.

“When I see a smile on your face, my whole world is illuminated,” he says at last. 

**Author's Note:**

> i forgot byleth didnt have a heartbeat so i had to go back in and change it wkdfnwjkvnwdvkjqwve


End file.
